Caulis, a homunculus warlock liberated from its master; has made a pact with certain Faerie Powers.

XP Awarded: 700 XP

We have already seen the strange travel of Garvin & Armand, to a strange, vampire-haunted version of Hex, darkened by an eternal cloud, but a member of the party remains unaccounted for – Caulis, the homunculus. As the mandrake-creature emerged from the portal into the sewer-grate, it found that something unusual seemed to have occurred. Firstly, Caulis was alone – there was no trace of its companions. Sunlight streamed in from a hole in the ceiling, where a gigantic root had thrust its way through into the room, coiling on the floor. The walls were covered in lichen and fungus, what looked like years worth of overgrowth. The door to the room hung rotten off its hinges.

Caulis clambered up the root cautiously, emerging blinking into the sunlight. It looked about. It appeared to be in Hex – or, rather, into what used to be Hex. There were buildings here, and streets, barely visible beneath decades’ worth of overgrowth, lush ferns poking up from the mossy street-sides. Creeping vines had strangled the city’s broken spires and cracked domes, and many buildings had been utterly overwhelmed by masses of kudzu or ivy. Huge trees burst through the roofs of houses and rose like towers above the shattered remnants of Hex.

Caulis cast about, seeking for someone, anyone to speak with, but only heard a strange giggling from a nearby structure. Making its way there it was surprised as a group of insect-winged sprites burst from a window and flitted away. It caught a snatch of Sylvan as one, pointing at it, yelped “outsider!” and another declared that “Queen Mab must be alerted!”

Perturbed, Caulis was seized by a similar impulse as Garvin and Armand on their own jaunt sideways through time: it sought out Master Melchior’s School of Thaumaturgy & Enchantment. The school itself was covered in vines and huge, bristling masses of thorns – huge masses of briars drooling from the windows and spilling from doors. The griffin guards were absent, but a lazy-looking footman stood sentinel. Pointed ears and greenish skin marked him as one of the Fair Folk.

“How long were you asleep?” the guard asked, bewildered. “This is the home of Lord Brambleheart, of Queen Mab’s Court, ruler of the Unfortunate Isles.”

“A Fairy Lord you say?”

“Yes. Now, if you do not have business here…”

“Ah but I do!” Caulis quickly improvised, hoping to learn more of this strange world. “I, ah – I’m looking for employment. Yes. I would like to serve Lord – Brambleheart, was it?”

The guard looked quizzical. “I see. And do you have any skills of note?”

“I am an accomplished spellcaster,” Caulis said, boldly. “Grant me an interview with his Lordship and I will gladly demonstrate my arcane abilities.”

“Hmm. Well, I suppose there’s no harm in a little audition.” The elf-guard shrugged. “Come this way, then.”

The footman escorted Caulis to a small chamber in the servant’s building, where more elves scurried to and fro – obviously servants. Caulis waited patiently while its psuedodragon familiar, Eleyin, explored, flitting into the remains of the library. Most of the books were gone or rotten, but some were preserved, and new tomes were also added – books of fairy history, and of enchantment. Instructing its familiar to snatch one such volume of spells, Caulis continued to wait, till a lumbering ogre-like thing lurched into the anteroom.

“His Lordship will see you now,” the hulking thing grunted. Caulis was led up Master Melchior’s tower; here the portraits of the archwizard were replaced with landscapes from Elfhame and pictures of fey royalty.

It was ushered into the remains of Melchior’s study, where the wizard’s empty brain-tank stood rusting. Sprawled in a leather chair, his feet on Melchior’s now vine-encrusted desk, was a slender fairy in flamboyant, aristocratic garb, long-haired and exquisitely handsome, with cruel amber eyes and a lazy, appraising smile.

“Ah, now aren’t you a find?” Lord Brambleheart said, inspecting Caulis up and down. “A homunculus from the time before… somehow survived till now. Or grown? Curious. I was told you were asleep?”

“That’s right,” Caulis said. “I only recently awoke.”

“You must be confused,” Lord Brambleheart said. “This is not the city you left, I am sure. Much has changed since the Tangle swallowed Hex into Faerie and the good Queen declared it her own. I understand you’re here looking for employment?”

“Indeed,” Caulis said. “I have some magical talents.” It demonstrated with a few cantrips.

“Marvelous!” Lord Brambleheart said with a little clap. “Well, you’re quite the curiosity… I’m sure I can find some place for you in my household.” He flicked his hands and a contract appeared, reading to be signed, specifying a period of ten years. “Sign here, if you please.”

Caulis reeled. This was going rather more quickly than it had anticipated.

“Oh, dear, well… you see, I already have something of a contract.”

“What?!” Lord Brambleheart snarled, handsome features contorting into an expression of fury. “Why did you not mention this? Who are you working for?”

Panicked, Caulis cast glitterdust and, with a flourish, used misty step to teleport back to the stairs. Lord Brambleheart’s fury turned back to delight.

“Ah! All part of the demonstration, eh? Great fun, great fun!” He clapped again, distracted, as Caulis flung itself down the stairs, using its powers to disguise itself as a goblin servant. It hurried across the courtyard towards the gates – only to find a regiment of purple-garbed, halberd-wielding fairy soldiers awaiting it.

“By order of Queen Mab, we are here for the outlander,” the leader declared to the footman.

Caulis shook its head and, hurrying, used misty step again to flicker past the squad.

“Oi! Whose that?” one of the guards snarled, pointing.

Realizing it needed to move quickly, Caulis fled, Eleyin following, as Mab’s soldiers gave chase. The homunculus ducked into a nearby thorn-patch and waited for them to pass before skulking out, again shifting its appearance to resemble a fairy. It hastened back to the sewer grate room and leapt back through the portal into Hex. It would have quite a story to tell.

Meanwhile, back in the Hex we all know, the party had regrouped. Yam had once again returned to Gloomway and Garvin was showing his younger self about the city, but Sister, Armand, and Alabastor had recruited Cephalus, and when Caulis returned, it rejoined the expedition. Refreshed, the party stepped back through the portal and into the Nightmare Tunnels.

Back in the primordial darkness of the Egregor Vaults, the party resumed their search for the Book of Dreams. They were once more in the strange labyrinth they’d accessed via the children’s bedroom in the dollhouse within the toy-room on the first level. Alabastor once more took out the magical dowsing rod he’d liberated from the automaton back on the Seven Hundred Steps of Slumber and used the device to guide the party towards the nearest source of magic.

After a short period of wandering through the maze, the party found themselves in a room lined with massive bookshelves rising up seemingly infinitely into darkness above. The books within them are thick and weighty, overlarge, with unintelligible scribbles on the spines.

Alabastor’s childhood drawing.

Alabastor cringed before the massive shelves, but, curious, Sister removed a volume from the bookshelf. Instantly the shelves began to tremble, and books began tumbling from above, several striking the Lengian cleric, more cascading down in a flood of pages and covers. In that moment, Cephalus’ keen dagonian eyes glanced across a book whose spine bore an actual title: The Secret Door. As books fell around the party Cephalus pulled the volume, causing part of one shelf to hinge inwards. The group rushed inside to flee the books, racing down a short corridor as books filled up the room behind them. They reached a blank wall with a lever, and after checking for any traps, pulled it, opening a door into another part of the maze. Blood trickled from Sister’s brow, staining her clerical robes.

Pressing on, Alabsator continued using his dowsing-rod, leading the group still further into the labyrinth. Cephalus, at this time, detected a faint smell of burning hair – sharp and unpleasant. He shuddered and pressed on. Passing many corridors, the group eventually found themselves at a wooden door. Bracing themselves for what lay beyond, they stepped through…

Yam & Cephalus’ players’ collaborative map of the Maze.

…only to find themselves inside of an outhouse, a crude latrine before them, the entrance ahead. Sunlight streamed through gaps in the walls, and a breeze was audible, rustling through vegetation. Opening the door, the group entered what seemed to be a field, beneath a darkening blue sky. Rows of corn extended in all directions, and a barn and small farmhouse where evident nearby, along with five scarecrows presiding over the fields. Cautiously, the party began venturing forwards, ears of corn brushing against them as they began their exploration of the fields.

“I don’t like these scarecrows,” Alabastor said.

“Let’s go have a look,” Sister suggested.

They approached one of the tatterdemalion things. Armand, using detect magic, discerned a strong aura of abjuration, but the scarecrow seemed otherwise normal – simply cloth and straw. On slightly closer inspection, however, Armand realized with a start that the scarecrow was garbed almost identically to himself – in patchwork clothes that resembled his own. Even the pale sack of the thing’s head seemed to have something of his sardonic expression.

“Didn’t the captions in the dollhouse mention nightfall?” Alabastor said.

“It’s getting on,” Cephalus urged. “Let’s investigate the farmhouse.”

Agreeing, the group cut through the corn rows to the farmhouse, a small wooden structure that looked disused. Alabastor picked the locked front door and they entered. Inside, the farmhouse was musty and disused. There was a bedroom, a front room, and a small kitchen. Blood spatters marred the walls, and much of the furniture has been broken – there was obviously violence done here.

In the bedroom, this violence was given horribly vivid form. A man was nailed to the wall, spread-eagled, and split from neck to navel, as if by a scythe. Vines and vegetation sprang from his body, from his eyes and mouth, nostrils, ears, groin, and lush creepers spill from his stomach like entrails. The vines bore fat, glistening pumpkins.

Most of the party nearly retched in horror, but Armand – undisturbed by such vegetal abomination – took a sample pumpkin, carefully removing it from its stem. “Hmm. Anything else here?” he asked, looking round. He seemed slightly put off by the bucolic setting. Alabastor was also perturbed, glancing frequently out the windows and keeping an eye on the sun.

“There’s a back door here…” Sister said. “Locked. But there’s no light coming from beneath it.”

Alabastor tried to pick the lock, to no avail.

“Stand back,” Cephalus said, and aimed a kick at the door. With a single strike and a tremendous sound of splintering wood the dagonian broke the door from its hinges. While the door should have opened into the fields, instead it led into a dark stone corridor.

Moments later, the party could hear the barn door opening, and something moving outside in the fields.

“You get through, and I’ll mend the door!” Sister said. She began casting a spell to repair the broken door as her companions hurried through.

“I’ll give you cover!” Alabastor said, conjuring an illusion of the intact door.

“I’ll see what’s out there,” Caulis said, sending Eleyin to spy. The creature telepathically projected images of scythes, sickles, and pichforks glinting as a group of figures, mostly hidden by the corn, began making their way towards the farmhouse, muttering some strange prayer.

“I’ll hide our tracks,” Cephalus said, drawing on his powers to cast pass without trace. There was a loud thud at the door as whoever was outside tried to force their way within. Sister mended and shut the back door as the front door gave, a shadow darkening its threshold. The party rushed down the corridor, putting space between themselves and their pursuers.

Cephalus’ player’s map of the second level.

Alabstor tried his dowsing rod, but it jerked in several directions, not settling on any given corridor. Wandering south, the party began to slowly explore the crystalline corridors of the Vaults on this level, swirling dream-stuff imprisoned in the Plateau of Frozen Thoughts visible behind the glassy surface of the walls.

Eventually, the group found their way to a door, fashioned in the style of the Old City, with a glyph-graven console behind it. Armand, practiced in the runic arts, used his powers to manipulate the glyph-lock and unseal the door. The floor of the huge room beyond was completely covered in a slick, liquid sheet of crimson – blood. It was impossible to tell how deep the blood extended; Sister cast light on a stone and cast it into the blood, but it quickly disappeared, swallowed by the crimson pool. More blood poureds slowly down the walls from small drains scattered about, sometimes in thin rivulets, other times in sheets of red.

At the fair end of the long, bloody hall was what looked like an elevator door, complete with a grate and a button to summon it – not a Librarian elevator, but a rickety mechanical lift.

“Hmm,” Alabastor said. “I don’t want swim in this. What if we tried to make a bridge, like we did over the Lethe?”

“Good idea,” Sister said. “Let’s try it.”

“I see some kind of orb,” Caulis noted, pointing to an object floating in the water. “A jewel or something.”

“Ugh,” Alabastor said, shivering. “Knowing this place it’s probably the bulb of some horrible angler-fish monster or something.”

“Hmm,” Cephalus said. “I have a thought… Obedai? You there?” He rubbed some ghostdust into his gills. Instantly, a ghostly form appeared before him – the spectre of a dagonian elder he’d met a number of times, Obedai, and who had now been “haunting” Cephalus for some time.. Only Cephalus, using the drug, could perceive this spirit.

“What kind of crazy place is this?” the ghostly dagonian said.

“Egregor Vaults,” Cephalus said – apparently to himself. “Can you help us out? You don’t need to breathe, so maybe could you dive down deep and see how far this blood goes?”

Meanwhile, Alabastor and Sister began to concentrate, and after a few tries, a stone bridge materialized over the blood, brought into being by the power of thought-made-real, as a lucid dreamer reshapes a dream. However, try as they might, they could only extend the bridge halfway across the blood.

A horrible moaning. Whimpers, sobs, screams. Sounds of anguish. And above all, a reek of incinerated flesh and greasy smoke. These heralded the arrival of the Burning Ones, born of Cephalus’ nightmares. They were trapped together, fused in a column of blackened tissue, like some obscene totem pole: burn victims from every species, a vast heap of them, dragging themselves on charred limbs, an amalgam of animals and humanoids, the mangled remains of workers caught in some unfathomable, infernal factory. Within their bodies still smouldered a livid red fire. It glowed and flared, making their flesh crack, producing fresh choruses of groans and shrieks. Flame spilled from eyes and mouths, scorching the air.

“Move!” Cephalus repeated, taking up the rear as the others began scrambling across the bridge.

Armand swore, racing to the end of the bridge and, with a quick spell, blinking across the remaining distance to the elevator. He hit the button to summon the lift.

Meanwhile, as Alabastor and Sister made their way across, red hands burst from the surface of the blood, grasping and clawing, one raking Sister’s leg, another clasping at Alabastor. They pulled themselves up: horrible, blood-slathered forms, bloated and thrashing, their eyes white and dead and staring, their mouths gaping, their arms extended in a grotesque embrace.

“Not more fire!” Cephalus said, backing up as the Burning Ones advanced down the corridor, seething towards him. They grasped at him with flaming hands and he dodged aside, then aimed a series of kicks and blows at their charred bulk, breaking off blackened limbs and sending a spray of sparks into the air.

Alabastor cast shatter, but it missed and hit the wall of the corridor behind the Burning Ones, sending shards of crystal cascading everywhere. Raw oneiric energy began spurting from the wall, coagulated thoughts bursting forth in a slurry of dream-slime.

While Armand awaited the lift he cast firebolt, scorching one of the bloody, bloated things, while the rest of the party hurried to the middle of the bridge.

“We’ve got to refocus!” Sister said. “Extend the bridge to the other side.”

“Right,” Alabastor said, while Caulis used sleep, and one of the swimmers slipped back beneath the blood. Meanwhile Eleyin snatched the orb from the blood.

Cephalus prepared to retreat, but the Burning Ones lashed out again, grasping the dagonian in a fiery embrace. Flame licked at his limbs as the creatures began pulling him into their charred mass. Eleyin flitted to Caulis; the homunculus tossed its familiar a healing potion. It fluttered over to Cephalus’ unconscious form and hastily uncorked the potion, pouring it down the dagonian’s mouth. Cephalus revived, his burns rapidly healing, and tore himself free of the Burning Ones’ grasp, but not before the column of flaming flesh tore Eleyin from out of the air and ripped the pseudodragon apart. It vanished in a puff of arcane energy, the pearl dropping to the ground. Cephalus snatched it up and bolted as the bridge began to collapse; the rest of the party flung spells at the pursuing swimmers. The Burning Ones, enraged, seethed forwards, plunging into the blood, which extinguished their smoulder. They hissed in pain or relief and swam forwards sluggishly.

The elevator had arrived. Armand pulled the grate open. “Hurry!” he snarled, leaping within. The party-members piled in hastily and pulled the grate shut as the undead swimmers lurched from the blood and charged, hands outstretched.

“Obedai?!” Cephalus asked, peering into the blood. Moments later, the ghost appeared, bubbling up through the surface, and, seeing the oncoming attackers, flitted into the elevator.

They scanned the buttons in the elevator. Levels 1-3 of the Egregor Vaults were marked, along with “Things to Come,” “Home,” and “Regrets.” Acting intuitively, Armand hit “Things to Come.” The elevator lurched into motion.

The elevator began moving up – and up, and up, and up. It continued moving at a fantastic rate until opening… on Hex itself. Or, rather: a version of Hex. Was this another alternate reality, kin to thosevisited by Caulis, Armand, and Garvin? Or was this something else? Whatever the case, it was horrific. Masses of greyish-purple lichen covered every visible surface, utterly carpeting the streets and creeping up the walls of buildings. Shambolic figures lurched into view – former citizens, perhaps, infested with the same all-consuming lichen.

“This place doesn’t look especially safe,” Alabastor said.

“What about ‘Regrets’?” Cephalus said. Exhausted and unsure, the group assented, and the dagonian hit the button.

The elevator lurched again – not up, or down, but to the side. Walls whizzed past, and the elevator ground to a halt. Water rushed in to the group’s knees (or Alabastor’s chest). The group looked out at the Radula River.

“Oh,” Cephalus said, gills fluttering with emotion. “I… I know what’s happening.” Sombrely, he pointed to a dagonian dock-worker, swimming out in the river amidst the tangle of the Swelter, Hex’s crazed dockland. “This is why I became a lawyer.”

“I don’t know what that would do to time,” Cephalus said. “I don’t know if this is even real.” He crossed his arms. “This made me what I am. Led me to help people. I won’t cancel that out.”

As they watched, Judrisss flailed, screaming, and sank below the surface. Moments later, dagonians dove into the water to try and rescue him – to no avail.

“I’ve seen enough,” Cephalus said.

“I’ll say a prayer for your friend,” Sister said quietly, as the water churned and the dagonian sank beneath the surface.

“Thank you,” Cephalus said, grim but resolved.

“Let’s try ‘Home’,” Alabastor suggested, and hit the button. Again the elevator whirred sideways, opening this time into a tiny room within a covered wagon, crates stacked up to the canvas ceiling, a bedroll spread on the floor.

“I lived here,” Alabastor said, shaking his head. “When I was with the circus.”

Armand poked his head outside the wagon. An endless black void stretched in all directions. Vague moaning sounds, like wind, echoed through the darkness.

“Seems to create the home of whoever hit the button,” Armand said.

“Maybe we could rest?” Caulis said.

“Not in this place.” Armand sniffed. “Everyone back in the lift.”

They complied, and Armand now hit “Home.” Instantly the party was conveyed to a simulacrum of Armand’s townhouse. While most of the party were hesitant to sleep outside the elevator, Armand retired to his own bed. The group rested, those on watch listening for any sign of hostility. Nothing assailed them, however, and the party woke rested and refreshed.

“I don’t know about you, but I want to get this book and get out of here,” Alabastor said to his companions.

The elevator hurtled downwards for many levels before opening into a gloomy chamber which appeared to be some sort of shrine. It was dominated by an idol of obviously Librarian construction, one of the Unspeakable Ones: a massive, sphinx-like thing, though with the body of a giant crustacean-like entity rather than a lion. In place of a face the idol had a gaping black void which seems to extend infinitely into darkness.

“The Thing Without a Face,” Sister said. “The Librarian god of oblivion, slumber, and the void.”

“Interesting!” Alabastor said, approaching the idol. “Do you think there’s something inside?” He clambered up the idol and poked his head into the gaping emptiness where the thing’s face should have been.

Instantly, Alabastor felt an invisible force pulling him into the darkness, a kind of horrid lure, tugging him forwards. He wrenched his head back as he realized the hole was closing in around him. It dilated back open.

“It wants a sacrifice.” Caulis said.

“Hmm. I have an idea.” Alabastor took out the Snatcher’s sack – the extradimensional bag containing the phantasm’s many victims, including Cagehead. Edging close to the idol, he gingerly opened the sack and, trying to keep his hands clear, emptied the contents into the idol’s faceless void.

A tremendous screaming, screeching, snarling, tearing sound was audible as dozens of forms were sucked from the bag and drawn into the void, snatching and clawing at one another – a huge mass of ghouls, ghasts, gugs, and other creatures. Cagehead tumbled out last, a mass of bloodied flesh and lashing chains. The sack’s prisoners tumbled into oblivion. The idol’s hole closed, and the room rumbled.

A feeling of immense peace filled all within the shrine. Wounds closed, and even old scars and injuries faded. The hole where the idol’s face should have been opened again – but this time, instead of a black, endless void, the party could see light, and what looked like a room beyond.

“This looks promising,” Cephalus said, breathing easier than he had in some time as old wounds healed.

Cautiously, the party ventured up to the idol. Even more cautiously they climbed through the portal and into a truly massive room beyond. Everything here was sized at least ten times larger than normal. A massive table set with the remains of a gargantuan meal was set in the middle. A hearth the size of a palace flickered with a vast conflagration. Candles big as trees glowed on the table.

Sitting in a cyclopean chair in one corner, slumbering thickly, was a giant – a hulking, brutish, warty thing close to a hundred feet tall. The monstrosity reeked. It had fallen asleep by the fire. Also dozing by the fire was a massive cat.

There was a door nearby, so huge they could crawl beneath it.

“Shhh,” Sister said, and invoking a blessing of stealthiness from the Mother of Spiders she made their footsteps silent. They crept through the room soundlessly and squeezed under the door, leaving both the cat and its owner undisturbed.

Cephalus’ player’s map of the Giant’s Chambers.

The party crept beneath the door. The room beyond proved to be the giant’s library, a huge room lined with massive, musty books, written in a bewildering array of languages. Unlike the books in the dollhouse these books were not records of individuals’ dreams, at least not based on the titles on their spines. In the middle of the room was a huge pedestal on which sat a huge tome. Sister, able to read the Aklo letters, excitedly identified it as the Oneironomicon.

Sister quickly produced a silk rope, and together several of the party members clambered up to retrieve the Book of Dreams. As they excitedly prepared to leave, however, a group of angrily chittering rats the size of large dogs scuttled from the shadows. Alabastor, as a gnome, possessed the ability to speak with small beasts and understand their animal language.

“Thieves! Burglars!” they proclaimed.” That’s ours! You’d best leave it be or we’ll strip yer flesh from yer bones!”

Alabastor hastily translated.

“Aren’t these the giant’s?” Caulis said.

“We’re the only ones that read them!” one rat proclaimed. A pair of human-sized reading glasses hung round its neck – perhaps looted from some other would-be adventurer.

“I’ll tell you what,” Alabastor said. “I’ll make you a deal.”

The rats squeaked. “Hmmm?”

“You must have read all these books many times,” Alabastor said. “But I have a new book for you.” He took out the book on the nature of doubt and reality that Melchior had given him. “I’ll trade this book for that one.” He pointed to the Book of Dreams.

“For the Oneironomicon?!” the learned rat-leader squeaked. “That book is of immense value!”

“Ah… so is this one! This book possesses tremendous power!” Alabastor held it up, with a glance at his companions. Sister used her thaumaturgy to lend the tome a supernatural glow, while Armand and Caulis added sparks and other effects to make the grimoire seem as if it were literally radiating magical power. The rats squeaked in enthrallment. “This book will reveal the secrets of the nature of reality itself!” Alabastor half-lied.

The bespectacled rat-leader nodded his head. “Yes! We must have it! Give it to us!”

“Uh… here!” Alabastor said, as he heard paws at the door – the cat trying to get in! “Take it!” He practically threw the book at the rats. The party grabbed the massive book while Sister scrawled a portal. They shoved the text through, and as it passed back into the sewer grate room, it shrank to a more manageable size. The group hastened through and closed the portal behind them just as the door opened and an angry feline mewl filled the library.

“Whew!” Sister said. “That was close.”

“But we’ve got the book,” Caulis said. “Now… what are we going to do with it?”

I recently got to participate in a podcast, Episode 3 of the S.S. Librarianship (“We Sacrifice 3 Goats a Week, at Least…”), where I talk about Alignment, its weird history, and its often-problematic utility as a roleplaying tool.